


Like Candles

by prototyping



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Prompt Fill, post-kh3, quick fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 03:43:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8474101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prototyping/pseuds/prototyping
Summary: Some things are better off forgotten, but fate doesn't always play fair with who forgets and who's forced to remember.Quick ficlet for a dialogue prompt. Terra + Aqua, post-KH3.





	

  
_“Good people are like candles; they burn themselves up to give others light.”_

* * *

“Done!” The door opened and Aqua stepped out with a cloud of steam, wrapped snugly in a thick towel. Terra could already see goosebumps rippling along her arms as they met the cooler air in the bedroom, but she only flashed him a grateful smile as she hurried for the hallway, one hand clutching her cover to her chest. “Thanks for letting me use it, Terra.”

“Sure thing. If you’re not getting any water in your room, the ice must’ve hit your pipes pretty hard. I’ll look at them first thing in the morning.”

“I appreciate it.” She gave his shoulder a grateful squeeze as she passed. “Take me with you. I need to learn about some of that myself.”

He opened his mouth to agree, but the sight of her retreating back took him by surprise. “Hey--” he called quickly. Aqua stopped mid-step and cast a curious glance over her shoulder. Her normally bright blue hair was almost navy beneath all the water it still held, clinging close to her cheeks and neck.

That wasn’t what had caught Terra’s attention. He met her gaze, but a second later his returned to the space between her shoulders. He wasn’t immediately sure why he’d felt compelled to call attention to it; he and Aqua and Ven all had battle scars, new and old, and the fact that he hadn’t seen this one before didn’t particularly mean much. It shouldn’t have, anyway.

“Where did you get that?” he heard himself say. He felt like he already knew the answer, but that only bothered him more.

Aqua hesitated, which was the first bad sign. She looked away, seemed to think about it for a moment, and then swiveled towards him -- hiding her back from him -- as she smiled sheepishly. “That? It’s an old one.”

“Aqua.” Her smile flickered like a patch of sunlight suddenly swallowed by a dark cloud. “Where did you get it?” Terra repeated. Rather than strict, his voice only became more gentle and patient. Aqua ran a hand distractedly through her hair with a light frown, but didn’t try to brush him off again. When Terra didn’t speak, either, for several moments, he saw her chest rise and fall with a soundless sigh.

“If you don’t remember,” she said quietly, her fingers coming to rest on her shoulder, “that’s probably best. I don’t think I need to remind you.”

So he did know. Or he should have.

Terra crossed the room. Aqua’s face said she wasn’t expecting it, but she didn’t move as he drew near, or when he stepped around behind her. It was easier to see now that she was still and close, which meant it looked worse than he had initially thought. The highest point started on her right shoulder and ran down to the left, across the dip in her spine to disappear somewhere beneath her left shoulder blade and the towel. Mirrored on her left side was a nearly identical mark, although this one was a little shorter, a little more shallow. Both lines were a misplaced pink, a stark contrast to her white skin and perhaps brighter than usual thanks to the heat of the shower. Both looked like they had hurt. Both had several smaller scratches running parallel to them. He could tell the smaller mark had been dealt second because it crossed over the other one, forming a large X.

A right-handed attacker, most likely. A real weapon, not claws or magic, something sharpened to a very smooth and lethally sharp edge. Something with multiple points.

_It’s an old one._

_If you don’t remember, that’s probably best._

It meant he shared the blame for it. She just wasn’t going to say it.

Terra wasn’t stupid. There was only one overlapping point in their lives that they didn’t talk about.

Carefully, as though the scars might still be tender, he touched his fingertips to the deeper mark. He felt Aqua twitch slightly in surprise, but she didn’t recoil. Her skin was warm. The scar felt different from the rest of her, a different kind of smooth. Slick but dry, like wax.

He traced the mark down to where it ended, but the motion was absent. He wasn’t seeing Aqua as much as the dark, blank haze of his distant memory, trying to recover a moment that he already knew he didn’t want to remember. He wasn’t feeling her soft skin as much as he was trying to picture steel between his fingers and a killing force driving them. He wasn’t hearing the silence of the room around them, but trying to picture how she must have cried out when Xehanort’s Keyblade tore across her back to leave it open, raw, and bleeding.

He couldn’t. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t recall a single detail. Maybe it really was for the best, as she’d said, but it still didn’t sit well with him. Aqua had gone through so much already. Why should she be forced to remember it alone, even going out of her way to hide this part of herself -- and all for his sake?

His fingertips stopped at the towel. His touch lingered in place, but his eyes drifted back up to her shoulders and curved onto her arms, noting the numerous nicks and small, white lines there. More shadows from the past.

She no longer wore the short-sleeved, open-backed tops that she’d always favored, but he’d never thought anything of it. Not until now.

“How many?” Terra murmured.

How many of these were from battles she had fought for thirteen years, alone and desperate and afraid?

And how many were from _him?_

Aqua turned around, the concern and sadness in her eyes as selfless as ever. She reached up and took his face in her hands, hands with even more scars now laid bare by her lack of gloves, and for several long heartbeats she only held his gaze solemnly. Then, gently, she tugged him closer as she stood up on her toes, up until their foreheads touched. Cold droplets trickled from her damp hairline onto his.

“I didn’t count, Terra.” Her fingers slipped back into his hair and held tight. Not painfully, but securely, as though she didn’t want him to pull or even look away until he understood her whispering. Until he _accepted_ it. “I never counted.”


End file.
